Technical Field
This disclosure is directed to integrated circuits, and more particularly, to controlling power consumption by subsystems having a number of functional units.
Description of the Related Art
In many integrated circuits (ICs), power savings is an important design consideration, particularly those used in systems that frequently operate on battery power. Accordingly, many ICs are designed to implement power saving features. Such power saving features may be used to conserve power in various circuits that are determined to not be performing useful work at a given time.
One method of conserving power is to perform clock gating. Clock gating may comprise inhibiting a clock signal from being provided to synchronous circuitry that is idle. This may result in dynamic power savings, as synchronous circuitry may not switch states when the clock signal is not provided.
A second method of preserving power is to perform power gating. Many circuits may be implemented in a gated power domain. When the circuitry in a gated power domain is idle, the power may be removed therefrom. This may realize additional power savings, particularly in synchronous circuits that were clock gated prior to power gating.